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Craigslist Fires Back Over Adult Services Accusations
Craigslist has fired back at South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster in an open letter defending the company's policies and procedures surrounding the much debated "adult services." Stating not only the measures that have been taken to minimize illegal behavior, CEO Jim Buckmaster suggests that Craigslist is doing much better at minimizing questionable ads than other major competitors like Yahoo!, Google, and others. "Mr McMaster, I strongly recommend you reconsider and retract your remarks, and positively affirm that you have no intention of launching criminal investigations aimed at any of these upstanding companies, because in truth none of them are deserving of such treatment. [...] We're willing to accept our share of criticism, but wrongfully accusing craigslist of criminal misconduct is simply beyond the pale. We would very much appreciate an apology at your very earliest convenience. As I'm sure would all of the other fine companies whose executives you've called out as criminals."
... when they refused to grow a pair and claim First Amendment protection, not to mention the safe-harbor provision of the CDA. Paternalistic, moralizing governors and DAs have no Constitutional basis to object to anything Craigslist was doing, and the company should have told them to STFU and GBTW.
But instead they tried to "negotiate," "compromise," and otherwise find a middle ground with religiously-motivated censors and nanny-statists.
Yeah. That always works. Because those sorts of people always go away and leave you in peace once you give in to their demands. <rolleyes>
If he wrote it down, sue him for libel, too. It's pretty obvious that saying your business is a criminal enterprise that endangers its customers' lives would be damaging to your business, and there seems to be plenty of evidence showing that it is better run than many unmentioned competitors.
But I doubt your state has exhausted its backlog of murders, rapes, armed robberies, child molestation cases, etc. Until you do, here's a polite suggestion: get your fucking priorities straight you worthless politician.
I swear, the fatal flaw of democracy is that it relies on the public to make the highest office holders do their job and not just use the office as a means of personal advancement. At least under a monarchy, the king could bitch slap a guy like this for grandstanding (not saying we should go back to a monarchy).
To me, it sounds like you're advocating reasoning with people that may well be unreasonable. Embarking on that is like arguing with pigs.
Craigslist has the support of the people. Why wouldn't they? It's free, has no ads, and always works as promised. There are no ulterior motives, Craig isn't looking to get wealthy. The government shutting down or censoring Craigslist would be the fast path to a miniature revolt. I don't see any elected official actually doing anything to it.
Besides, it's not like Craigs list has given up its first amendment rights. If they ever wanted to, they could use them in a court of law. My guess is they just wanted to avoid court because it would cut into their already-small profits.
I know you're probably saying that as a hyperbole, but sometimes I do kinda wonder.
Way I see it, any working democracy nowadays has the politicians and some non-elected body to fix the politicians' deliberate self-promoting screw-ups. In some countries (e.g., the USA) it's the judges. In some (e.g., the UK) there are some non-elected lords who get to say "that's stupid and unconstitutional, screw that."
Seriously, you'd expect the aristocracy to be the self-serving self-centered barstards, and the politicians to represent the common man. But the way it seems to work entirely too often is that the politicians pull some populist stunt as a law, and then keep their fingers crossed that the non-elected guys have the balls to strike it down. I'm thinking just of the slew of recent "think of the children" laws (saving them even from non-threats like video games) that seem to crop up everywhere before elections.
Except sometimes the non-elected guys don't intervene, or nobody challenges it all the way to the apropriate level to strike it down, and the rest of the country is saddled with the stupidity its politicians wrought. And even in the best case scenario, often it can take several years before its escalated to the point where it can be removed.
Now I'm not entirely deluded. I know how totalitarian regimes historically were worse, and why some people shed blood to get, say, the Magna Carta signed by the king.
But I still wonder. It seems to me like at the very least for each two evils we avoided via democracy, we introduce a new one _because_ of the way modern democracies work.
I'm not sure what a better system would look like, but sometimes I wish someone would invent it already.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
"Isn't obeying the law a zero-tolerance situation?" In what sense? Yes, violate the letter of the law, and you've broken a law. In practice, however, both enforcement and punishment are tempered by extenuating circumstances. The legal code in the U.S. is such that breaking one or more laws is a daily occurrence for most. However, enforcement is neither practical nor useful. Get pulled over on a routine traffic and be a royal ass to the cop, however, and they're liable to find any number of additional charges. Or kill someone; intent factors highly into the equation. Was it self-defense? Accidental? Pre-meditated or in the heat of the moment? As far as I know, only school systems practice zero-tolerance with any sort of rigor; the results tend to be appalling, in my opinion.
You'd be betting correctly; however, it's also true that the greater part of 90% of business those escorts (the ones that are hooking) get doesn't involve sex. It's surprising, but guys don't seem to take what's right there for them; they'll pay a couple hundred bucks just to have a date to take out (are you THAT lame? Go to the party alone and maybe you'll pick up a girl!), and then go home and just chat for a while, and send her off at the end of the night. And yet, if they wanted to, they've already tipped in enough that the girl'll go right on her back... funny, huh?
I for one wouldn't pay for sex. I can't really get on with one night stands or anything; I'm very nervous around people and the requirements for a sufficiently non-threatening situation are a little difficult. Sexual situations are especially stressful, and I need to be particularly comfortable with someone before I can calm down enough to go with it. Maybe a lot of guys just can't get over that they're that lame to have to pay a prostitute...
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Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
The problem with politicians is, well, that they exist as a profession.
I agree. Serving in the legislature should be like jury duty, not a career or a way to get rich.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
www.mypinkbook.com is an interesting read
Spoken like a true member of the majority, who doesn't know what its like to be surrounded by people who will discriminate againt you at any chance.
I'm a non-christian living where there's a church on virtually every block. Don't talk to me about 'religion' and 'minority rule'
Jherico
What can the average user can do to ensure his security? "Nothing, you're screwed"
Interesting. Last night Jim Buckmaster was talking on NPR about the case, and complaining that everything in the Internet, and particularly Craigslist, is held at a much higher standard than, for example, the car industry. If cars kill 45000 people a year, why are car makers allowed to make cars that can two twice as fast as the speed limit? Asking CL to go so far beyond their duty is, to say the least, unfair.
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